President of the Federation of figure skating in Russia Alexander Gorshkov also confirmed this information:

We know that they (Ilinykh and Shibnev) began to skate together, but we have no official information from coaches or athletes yet. Ruslan (Zhiganshin) had health problems, while (this information) remains the same. There was no official announcement of retirement yet.

There was video of Elena and Anton from Sochi, so we thought they’re working with Averbukh on the FD. Turns out that’s not correct information.

The pair turned out quite beautiful, they look good with each other, but it’ll be possible to talk about prospects later. They came to me in Sochi, but I did not do them programs, only consulted during several training sessions, made some corrections. So I’m not the choreographer of their programs.

We can’t say that we have new leaders of the team, we already have them – Ekaterina Bobrova / Dmitri Soloviev and Alexandra Stepanova / Ivan Bukin. The guys can compete for the third place with a number of pairs, but they still have to go a long way before becoming the pair that can claim for high places. – Averbukh said

I was at their training. I respect Lena, the Olympic champion, for her deed, for being a talent, because she didn’t want to quit and decided to continue working. She looks good and together they look very good and work well with (Elena) Kustarova. They skate like masters. He lifts her easily, they have an interesting program, I want to see their development.